Speed Test Overview

A comparison of Internet connection speed testers

MySpeed is a speed test program available on-line or in a downloadable
version that accurately measures your Internet connection bandwidth,
and provides an easy to understand report of your download and upload
speeds and connection quality.

Not all Bandwidth Testers are Created Equal

Is your Internet speed tester software accurate?
Developing an Internet bandwidth and connectivity speed tester at
the first glance may appear a very easy task. Just download a test
data file, measoure the download time, and calculate the resulting
bandwidth, right? No, even major companies get it wrong, as we will
see below. The result is many speed testers that report an incorrect
bandwidth for your connection.

The need for speed test accuracy
Are you getting all the bandwidth that you are paing for? If you paid
for a 8 Mbps service, but are only testing at 6 Mbps, is the problem
with your broadband connection, or with your speed tester?

Measuring broadband consistency and QoS
In order for your speed tester to provide an accurate quality
of service (QoS) measurement for your broadband connection, it
first needs to be able to very accurately measure your bandwidth.

The need for broadband bandwidth consistency
Your broadband network connection is only as reliable as its weakest
link. So if you paid for a 3 Mbps connection, but the performance
of the connection jumps around from 5 Mbps to 1 Mbps (over time averaging
3 Mbps), you will effectively be limited to 1 Mbps for planning purposes.
Because if you deploy an application that needs more than 1 Mbps,
that application will fail, because at times it really will not have
more than 1 Mbps to use. In other words, it is far easier to deploy
a "Ferrari" (application) on a "street" (broadband)
that is "flat" (consistent) rather than "rolling hills"
(hight, then low, then high again).